This is a repost from Brian Trunk's learning journal, but since it is not open to the public I got permission to post it here for all. Enjoy, I sure did.
What do Black Friday (BF) and our MBA program have to do with each other??? Well most students at school would say the only correlation between the two is that you should boycott the Black Friday specials and be more sustainable. I would like to challenge my fellow students on the concept of boycotting BF.
Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year. The time when all everyone hits the stores looking for the best sales deals of the year. But in reality it is so much more and I think that an MBA student would see the corner stone that Black Friday has become for the economy. If BF does not succeed with the revenue projections this year then people will still believe that we are in a recession and the markets will drop on Monday. When the markets drop so does the funding of sustainable ventures.
If Black Friday was a success it builds consumer confidence that recession could be behind us. What does that mean though??? It means that people will free up money for new ventures, banks could start loaning money again, etc. The job markets will open and companies will start to hire positions like "Sustainability Managers." As consumer confidence rises and businesses grow, investors look to support new ideas like Solar and Wind energy products.
In short next time you hear the "dont shop on Black Friday" spiel, I challenge you to think from an MBA prospective on how important it is to actually buy on that day and support the economy. One last thing, supporting BF this year would have meant something even more for the our students. I would say that over 90% voted for President Obama. If Black Friday is a success and the economy is turning around then it will be attributed to the new president and we all want to see that happen.
In the future we need to start thinking of the long term impacts our decisions and actions make instead of boycotting 1 day of the year.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Road Raging Fox News Writer Arrested for Dragging a Cyclist Through Central Park
Road Raging Fox News Writer Arrested for Dragging a Cyclist Through Central Park: "
Image via Gawker
You may have heard this one before--a cyclist goes biking in New York City. Cyclist gets cut off by a driver who's irritated by having to share the road with cyclists. Cyclist rides up to driver at next stop, positions himself in front of the vehicle and tells him to please observe the speed limit. Driver rams cyclist and drags him 200 feet through Central Park. Driver is a writer for Fox News....
"
Image via Gawker
You may have heard this one before--a cyclist goes biking in New York City. Cyclist gets cut off by a driver who's irritated by having to share the road with cyclists. Cyclist rides up to driver at next stop, positions himself in front of the vehicle and tells him to please observe the speed limit. Driver rams cyclist and drags him 200 feet through Central Park. Driver is a writer for Fox News....
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Not surprisingly my learning this last week has floated around the “discussion” in CRL. I thought I would add a few more thoughts on i the questions that have been asked I to me. Specifically around why it was now that this was posted and not sooner.
There are several reasons for this and most come from BGI experiences before this course (similar to the beginnings of the thoughts shared about this course). First of these reasons is response, not a written or verbal response but one of action. It has sadly been the experience of myself that feedback at BGI does not take shape in change in time to effect my experience. I know you can imagine how frustrating this could be. Also when I have questioned experiences in the past I have been asked to "brainstorm" on them, which I have found slightly insulting on a few levels (one being a grad student should already be critically thinking through my comments, I should at least receive that benefit from my instructors). At other times I have been told that they are going to change that in the next version of the curriculum (either the coming year or in two years when the 2.0 BGI version happens). This has been very challenging since we are also at the school to learn about how promote and create change.
My motivation to posting to the class was a result of tiring of the quite criticism with no action. Which I also understand is a result of the lack of response to feedback, vicious circle. The irony is strong to me in a school that promotes change that participants will not and do not speak up. I believe this is because they do not feel empowered to do so, that the time vs change is an equal balance, and that when they weight priorities in their life that change falls low. Again, how will we effect the outside world if we do not interact within this smaller, more supportive, one? People are faking assignments because it is easier to fake it than to "complain" or comment about how this does not connect to them. It is much larger than just than just CRL class. Thoughts on this?
There are several reasons for this and most come from BGI experiences before this course (similar to the beginnings of the thoughts shared about this course). First of these reasons is response, not a written or verbal response but one of action. It has sadly been the experience of myself that feedback at BGI does not take shape in change in time to effect my experience. I know you can imagine how frustrating this could be. Also when I have questioned experiences in the past I have been asked to "brainstorm" on them, which I have found slightly insulting on a few levels (one being a grad student should already be critically thinking through my comments, I should at least receive that benefit from my instructors). At other times I have been told that they are going to change that in the next version of the curriculum (either the coming year or in two years when the 2.0 BGI version happens). This has been very challenging since we are also at the school to learn about how promote and create change.
My motivation to posting to the class was a result of tiring of the quite criticism with no action. Which I also understand is a result of the lack of response to feedback, vicious circle. The irony is strong to me in a school that promotes change that participants will not and do not speak up. I believe this is because they do not feel empowered to do so, that the time vs change is an equal balance, and that when they weight priorities in their life that change falls low. Again, how will we effect the outside world if we do not interact within this smaller, more supportive, one? People are faking assignments because it is easier to fake it than to "complain" or comment about how this does not connect to them. It is much larger than just than just CRL class. Thoughts on this?
Real-Time Review/Ratings- Marketing
Wrote this for marketing, but it was because of all that we have been looking through in our last few weeks in this course.
Real-Time Review/Ratings- Marketing
Definition
The use of consumer reviews, accounts and ratings to measure, compare, and facilitate the purchase of items and services.
History
Real-time reviewing is considered a subset of NOWISM. NOWISM according to Trendwatching the “Consumers’ ingrained lust for instant gratification is being satisfied by a host of novel, important (offline and online) real-time products, services and experiences” (2009). This lust for gratification also impacts the information used for making that instant commerce happen.
The advent of NOWISM and real-time reviewing was limited to locations with a hot spot, mobile devices have now made it possible to for the 1.7 billion internet users, about 25% of the global population, to be permanently online. These online users can now offer positive and negative reviews of their experiences as well as research others postings before making a purchase.
Purpose
There are several layers of purpose here. For the consumer to share their experience openly with a product/service/organization and for consumers to gather information before making a purchase are the larger umbrellas, but within each there are many reasons for real-time reviewing.
Consumers rate or review to criticize, praise, offer constructive feedback, explain alternate uses, share background information, and explain the CSR of a purchase, item, service, and/or an organization (to name a few). Consumers read these to gather information to assess the social impacts, popularity, price difference, satisfaction, longevity, warranty, future trends, and more before making said purchase.
Consequences
For business and consumers there are tremendous and every chaining consequences of this real-time reviewing. Perhaps the most predominate of these is at the moment price comparison of items. There are mobile apps that allow consumers to scan items barcodes or take pictures of the item and then search both online and physical retailers for the item and their offered price, Shopsavvy and SnapTell are two of these services. This price comparison causes increased price scrutiny by physical retailers. According to Trendswatch, Shopsavvy has hand more than 1.5million image queries with a 30% click-through rate to its parent company, Amazon.com (2009).
These apps are now being incorporated with the latest in augmented reality. The iPhone equipped with 3GS enables one to use maps and rating programs like Yelp to look around ones surrounding and see restaurant and shops distance, ratings, and information overlaying the physical view one sees through the phones camera.
Aside from price, applications like projectlabel which allows consumers to research and report the health and safety of products otherwise know as “people-powered company nutrition labels”(2009). This reviewing is happening in every sector and will require more transparency and communication by business. Transparency in that the sheer volume of postings will lead to more accuracy in reviews and subsequently more trust in them. According to the Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, “ 90% of online consumers worldwide trust recommendations from people they know, while 70% trust consumer opinions posted online" (2009).
Apps such as ShoutIT let individuals link their reviews to Facebook, Delicious, and Digg (Trendwatch 2009) which then is shared on their profile page allowing their social graph to carry the information further and at the level of personal recommendations.
The communication is coming in the form of more direct interaction with consumer. Already business are finding value in monitoring what is being posted about them on Twitter, Dell Comcast and Southwest Airlines are three frontrunners in this. These include following up on complaints or thanking individuals for compliments.
There is also direct consumer interaction that is monitered by consumers themselves. One recent example of this consumer was on the opening weekend of Bruno, a spoof comedy movie similar to the successful Borat, twetters’ wrote about their displeasure with the movie and its box office sales saw a 40% ticket drop. This is refereed to as the ‘Twitter effect’ and can swing popularity in both directions.
Another real-time review that is still emerging is Google Sidewiki, which allows users that have Sidewiki enabled to write and read comments inline with a webpage. The effects on online retailers, businesses, organizations is yet to be defined but their are implications of transparency and questions inline with ones online presence.
The ability for consumers to now be permanently online has enabled another service, price alerting. Now a consumer can find the item they are looking for and set a price they are willing to pay and wait until that price emerges, airlines have been doing this for years with sites like Priceline.com and Expedia.com, look to Apnoti a Amazon marker and PriceDrop a browser extension for consumer items.
Scale and context
With 1.7 billion people having access to the internet (www.internetworldstats.com) and over 4.6 billion people with mobile phone subscriptions worldwide according to the International Telecommunication Union. With about 18% of handsets currently having online access that is 800million individuals with nearly constant access. The scale is tremendous and with the increasing infusion of access and understanding. Already in younger, more technological accepting, markets the action of real-time review and rating is already fast becoming a habit.
Critique of the concept
The issue of real-time reviews and ratings has game changing implications upon the transparency in advertising and in practice of how business as usual is done. While advertising has changed with culture and technology, real-time reviewing will cause it to change with individual experiences.
References
(Sep/Oct 2009). “Transparency triumph” reviewing is the new advertising. Retrieved from http://trendwatching.com/trends/transparencytriumph/
(November 2009). “NOWISM” why currency is the new currency. Retrieved from http://trendwatching.com/trends/nowism/
McGiboney, Michelle (July 2009). Personal recommendations and consumer opinions posted onlie are the most trusted forms of advertising globally. Retrieved from http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/pr_global-study_07709.pdf
Projectlabel.org Retrieved from https://projectlabel.org/ on November 21, 2009
Internet World Stats. Retrieved from www.internetworldstats.com on November 21, 2009
Further reading
Catching-up is the new looking ahead. (August 2009). http://trendwatching.com/trends/catchingup/
FOREVERISM. (June/July 2009). http://trendwatching.com/trends/foreverism/
Doctors consider muzzling patients as online consumer rating expands to medical services. (March 2009). http://blog.cleveland.com/medical/2009/03/doctors_consider_muzzling_pati.html
Additional Apps or Rating Sites
http://socialyell.com/
http://www.3rdwhale.com/
Real-Time Review/Ratings- Marketing
Definition
The use of consumer reviews, accounts and ratings to measure, compare, and facilitate the purchase of items and services.
History
Real-time reviewing is considered a subset of NOWISM. NOWISM according to Trendwatching the “Consumers’ ingrained lust for instant gratification is being satisfied by a host of novel, important (offline and online) real-time products, services and experiences” (2009). This lust for gratification also impacts the information used for making that instant commerce happen.
The advent of NOWISM and real-time reviewing was limited to locations with a hot spot, mobile devices have now made it possible to for the 1.7 billion internet users, about 25% of the global population, to be permanently online. These online users can now offer positive and negative reviews of their experiences as well as research others postings before making a purchase.
Purpose
There are several layers of purpose here. For the consumer to share their experience openly with a product/service/organization and for consumers to gather information before making a purchase are the larger umbrellas, but within each there are many reasons for real-time reviewing.
Consumers rate or review to criticize, praise, offer constructive feedback, explain alternate uses, share background information, and explain the CSR of a purchase, item, service, and/or an organization (to name a few). Consumers read these to gather information to assess the social impacts, popularity, price difference, satisfaction, longevity, warranty, future trends, and more before making said purchase.
Consequences
For business and consumers there are tremendous and every chaining consequences of this real-time reviewing. Perhaps the most predominate of these is at the moment price comparison of items. There are mobile apps that allow consumers to scan items barcodes or take pictures of the item and then search both online and physical retailers for the item and their offered price, Shopsavvy and SnapTell are two of these services. This price comparison causes increased price scrutiny by physical retailers. According to Trendswatch, Shopsavvy has hand more than 1.5million image queries with a 30% click-through rate to its parent company, Amazon.com (2009).
These apps are now being incorporated with the latest in augmented reality. The iPhone equipped with 3GS enables one to use maps and rating programs like Yelp to look around ones surrounding and see restaurant and shops distance, ratings, and information overlaying the physical view one sees through the phones camera.
Aside from price, applications like projectlabel which allows consumers to research and report the health and safety of products otherwise know as “people-powered company nutrition labels”(2009). This reviewing is happening in every sector and will require more transparency and communication by business. Transparency in that the sheer volume of postings will lead to more accuracy in reviews and subsequently more trust in them. According to the Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, “ 90% of online consumers worldwide trust recommendations from people they know, while 70% trust consumer opinions posted online" (2009).
Apps such as ShoutIT let individuals link their reviews to Facebook, Delicious, and Digg (Trendwatch 2009) which then is shared on their profile page allowing their social graph to carry the information further and at the level of personal recommendations.
The communication is coming in the form of more direct interaction with consumer. Already business are finding value in monitoring what is being posted about them on Twitter, Dell Comcast and Southwest Airlines are three frontrunners in this. These include following up on complaints or thanking individuals for compliments.
There is also direct consumer interaction that is monitered by consumers themselves. One recent example of this consumer was on the opening weekend of Bruno, a spoof comedy movie similar to the successful Borat, twetters’ wrote about their displeasure with the movie and its box office sales saw a 40% ticket drop. This is refereed to as the ‘Twitter effect’ and can swing popularity in both directions.
Another real-time review that is still emerging is Google Sidewiki, which allows users that have Sidewiki enabled to write and read comments inline with a webpage. The effects on online retailers, businesses, organizations is yet to be defined but their are implications of transparency and questions inline with ones online presence.
The ability for consumers to now be permanently online has enabled another service, price alerting. Now a consumer can find the item they are looking for and set a price they are willing to pay and wait until that price emerges, airlines have been doing this for years with sites like Priceline.com and Expedia.com, look to Apnoti a Amazon marker and PriceDrop a browser extension for consumer items.
Scale and context
With 1.7 billion people having access to the internet (www.internetworldstats.com) and over 4.6 billion people with mobile phone subscriptions worldwide according to the International Telecommunication Union. With about 18% of handsets currently having online access that is 800million individuals with nearly constant access. The scale is tremendous and with the increasing infusion of access and understanding. Already in younger, more technological accepting, markets the action of real-time review and rating is already fast becoming a habit.
Critique of the concept
The issue of real-time reviews and ratings has game changing implications upon the transparency in advertising and in practice of how business as usual is done. While advertising has changed with culture and technology, real-time reviewing will cause it to change with individual experiences.
References
(Sep/Oct 2009). “Transparency triumph” reviewing is the new advertising. Retrieved from http://trendwatching.com/trends/transparencytriumph/
(November 2009). “NOWISM” why currency is the new currency. Retrieved from http://trendwatching.com/trends/nowism/
McGiboney, Michelle (July 2009). Personal recommendations and consumer opinions posted onlie are the most trusted forms of advertising globally. Retrieved from http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/pr_global-study_07709.pdf
Projectlabel.org Retrieved from https://projectlabel.org/ on November 21, 2009
Internet World Stats. Retrieved from www.internetworldstats.com on November 21, 2009
Further reading
Catching-up is the new looking ahead. (August 2009). http://trendwatching.com/trends/catchingup/
FOREVERISM. (June/July 2009). http://trendwatching.com/trends/foreverism/
Doctors consider muzzling patients as online consumer rating expands to medical services. (March 2009). http://blog.cleveland.com/medical/2009/03/doctors_consider_muzzling_pati.html
Additional Apps or Rating Sites
http://socialyell.com/
http://www.3rdwhale.com/
Saturday, November 28, 2009
eBay Maps Out Black Friday Online Transactions
eBay Maps Out Black Friday Online Transactions: "
"
While Black Friday has long been a popular phenomenon for brick and mortar stores, the deal frenzy has been extending to e-retailers and online stores. Now, sales on the web are equally as lucrative as those in the stores. eBay is launching a campaign to capitalize on the holiday shopping season, called “12 Days Of Deals,” and has also rolled out a new Deal-focused iPhone app and partnered with Microsoft to offer deals directly from Internet Explorer 8.
Today, the e-commerce giant is launching a interactive map that shows all of the transactions that took place on eBay on Black Friday. The map provides a visualization of all U.S.-based buyer and seller transactions that occurred on eBay on Black Friday.
As the clock runs, points will appear on the map, representing the occurrence of buyer and seller transactions on eBay. eBay says the map visualization is based on raw data that includes eBay sales and purchases occurring in approximately 33,000 U.S. ZIP codes.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Fox News Makes the Best Pie Chart. Ever.
Fox News Makes the Best Pie Chart. Ever.: "
"
What? I don't see anything wrong with it.
Alright, alright, so it's local news, but still, come on. I wonder if the newscaster even bats an eye as he's reading the numbers off the teleprompter:
[via @kevinthepang & @eagereyes & Wonkette | Thanks, all]
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
On a Wind and a Care. The Sail Transport Company Freight Food By Yacht
On a Wind and a Care. The Sail Transport Company Freight Food By Yacht: "
Photos: Culture Change
Previously we've talked about a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) carbon neutral project to ship grain from paddocks to pantries via sail-craft. That was in Canada's British Columbia. For the past year the Sail Transport Company (STC) have been following a similar ethos -- although a little further south -- moving vegetables across Puget Sound, from farmer's fields...Read the full story on TreeHugger
"
Photos: Culture Change
Previously we've talked about a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) carbon neutral project to ship grain from paddocks to pantries via sail-craft. That was in Canada's British Columbia. For the past year the Sail Transport Company (STC) have been following a similar ethos -- although a little further south -- moving vegetables across Puget Sound, from farmer's fields...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Study Reveals: 13 Best Practices Of Social Media Implemented By The Top 200 US Charities
Study Reveals: 13 Best Practices Of Social Media Implemented By The Top 200 US Charities: "
Posted in Blog, Social Media Tagged: Best Practice, blogs, Email Marketing, Facts and Figures, NGO, Not for Profit, Social Media, Social Networking, Study, Top 200, twitter, youtube
"
I have noticed in both observing and working with non profits that their uptake and utilization of social media is creative, innovative and extensive and when I came upon this study by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research who had recently completed (June 2009) one of the first statistically significant studies on the usage of social media by United States charities that my anecdotal suspicions were supported by empirical evidence.
The new study compares organizational adoption of social media in 2007 and 2008 by the 200 largest charities in the United States as compiled annually by Forbes Magazine. For complete details on Forbes Magazine’s list of the largest charities, please visit their website at Forbes.com. They are some of the best-known charities in the country including the Salvation Army, American Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, Habitat for Humanity International and Easter Seals. The participating non-profits have headquarters in every major US city including New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta and San Francisco. They were asked detailed questions about the organizations’ familiarity with, usage of, monitoring of and attitude towards six common forms of social media (blogs, wikis, podcasts, online video, message boards and social networking).
So what are some of the best practices and uses of social media as displayed by the top 200 US NGO’s.
13 Best Practices Of Social Media Implemented By the Top 200 US Charities
This new research shows that charitable organizations are still outpacing the business world and academia in their use of social media. In the latest study (2008) a remarkable eighty-nine percent of charitable organizations are using some form of social media including blogs, podcasts, message boards, social networking, video blogging and wikis.
- Blogging is the leading social media channel:
- A majority (57%) of the organizations are blogging versus 41% by Universities and Colleges, 39% by the Top 500 fastest growing companies and 16% by the Fortune 500 .
- 52% of the respondents to the 2008 survey still without a blog said they planned to add one in the future, making blogs the most popular tool now and for the foreseeable future.
- When asked if they felt their blogs were successful, approximately 90% of charities with blogs said yes. This finding is also consistent with studies in business and academia that have consistently shown those using social media are satisfied and feel it provides positive results
- Vital for fundraising: Forty-five percent of those studied report social media is very important to their fundraising strategy. While these organizations are best known for their non-profit status and their fundraising campaigns, they demonstrate an acute, and still growing, awareness of the importance of Web 2.0 strategies in meeting their objectives.
- Video is now one of the core features of social media: The use of video in their blogs jumped from 40% in the 2007 study to 65% the following year.
- Social networking site use is now considered mainstream not optional: Social networking up 47%
- WordPress as a platform for the blog is dominant: Twenty-six percent of those with blogs are using WordPress software as a platform
- Twitter is used extensively
- YouTube video uploads are prominent.
- Allowing the accepting of comments is almost universal: also known as allowing conversation (85% of those charities with blogs accepted comments and 88% in 2008)
- RSS feed use is considered a vital feature of a blog: (57% in 2007 compared to 67% in 2008) Note: This simplifies the blogosphere for readers who may want to keep up with a certain conversation or be informed of new information without having to check the blog of interest every day to see if there is something new.
- Email subscriptions is Crucial on your blog: now in the majority (23% in 2007 compared to 56% in 2008)
- Promoting the blog is an essential activity: The promotion was email, press release and newsletters in 2007 , with 2008 seeing the use of social networking to promote their blog
- Success is mainly measured by the number of hits or comments they receive on their website or blog: Also in 2008 many reported donations coming in as a result of social media communications as an additional form of measurement.
- Monitoring of Social Media is considered important by the majority of Non Profits: They are listening to what’s being said about them online. Sixty-six percent of respondents in 2007 and 75% in 2008 report they monitor the Internet for buzz, posts, conversations and news about their institution. Most of these organizations realize the importance of knowing what conversation might occur around their cause, their name, their location or constituents. How do they monitor buzz about themselves or their causes.
- In 2007, 42% did searches manually using basic search engines like Google and appropriate key words.
- In 2008, that dropped to 36% while the number of charities automating their searches climbed from 34% to 42%. Google alerts were the most popular automated searches.
Note: When comparing charities with other sectors also using social media and monitoring their names, brands or products, these non-profits again stand out. In 2008, 54% of US colleges and universities monitored buzz online about their school, 60% of the Inc. 500 monitored their brands or name and 75% of the top charities monitored their names, causes or other pertinent information. This group is both active and sophisticated in their use of social media.
Conclusion
This new study, looking at social media usage among the nonprofit sector, reveals that social media has become an incredibly important part of the communication strategy for US charities. The largest non-profits are continuing to outpace businesses and even academic institutions in their familiarity, use, and monitoring activity. These top organizations have found a new and exciting way to win the hearts (and maybe the dollars) of potential donors.
So are you practicing and implementing social media best practice in your organisation?
Posted in Blog, Social Media Tagged: Best Practice, blogs, Email Marketing, Facts and Figures, NGO, Not for Profit, Social Media, Social Networking, Study, Top 200, twitter, youtube
How to Use Social Media
How to Use Social Media: "
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Dan Zarrella, social-media maven, explains how and when to use social media site such as Facebook and Twitter. He is the author of The Social Media Marketing Book. Read the post if you’re wondering how to optimize your social-marketing efforts.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
How Google Wave is Changing the News
How Google Wave is Changing the News: "
Reviews: Google, Google Maps, Google Wave, Twitter
"
It’s not too often that legacy media learns a new mass communication tool along with its audience. But that’s exactly what’s going on now because of Google Wave. Although it’s still invitation only and in preview, the real-time wiki collaboration platform is being used by some media companies for community building, real-time discussion, crowdsourcing, collaboration both inside and outside the newsroom, and for cross publishing content.
Google Wave may seem familiar to older users of the Internet, who have been using the parts that make up the whole of the platform for years. Wave, however, brings those pieces together cohesively to allow users to share photos, embed videos, and converge other Google applications such as Google Maps and Google Calendar to create customized blocks of user-editable content on the fly. Here are four ways that newsrooms are using Wave.
Using Waves to Foster Engagement
Using Google Wave allows newsrooms to reach out to their audiences and invite their active participation on news stories. In the process, waves become a vehicle to create an engaged local community who can also play a role in the newsroom. That may redefine how news is gathered, reported and presented to its audience, blurring the boundary between newsroom and community bulletin board.
Chicago Tribune’s RedEye blog started its first public wave on November 10, and since then it has attracted more than 300 blips. Following that success, Stephanie Yiu, RedEye’s web editor, and Scott Kleinberg, senior editor of digital and print, now lead a half-hour public wave session every day.
“It’s a lot more live than Twitter because it’s like you can see people typing and everybody gets to know each other,” she told me. “It’s really about connecting with our readers on a new platform. We’re learning with our readers and moving forward together.”
RedEye sends out tweets promoting each wave with a link asking Twitter followers (those that have access to Google Wave) to join the conversation. Yiu told me the daily wave is a discussion about RedEye’s cover story. During the last 10 minutes they ask participants for suggestions on how to make the wave better.
What makes Google Wave so useful is the community building aspect, according to Yiu. “The great thing is once it ends at 11 o’clock, it keeps on going. They keep on talking,” she said. Yiu is hoping it will be a cool way to get feedback, such as movie reviews, from their readers that that they can also run in the RedEye print product, which is something they’re already doing with Twitter.
Using Waves As ‘Town Squares’
Robert Quigley, social media editor at the Austin American-Statesman, has started two public waves so far. “People are enthusiastic and they want to talk about news. I was surprised how much discussion there was about the news,” he said.
However, said Quigley, the challenge right now is keeping public waves on topic. If they get more than 50 blips discussion grinds to a halt, reported Quigley. He added that in order for Google Wave to work during a news event, there needs to be the ability to moderate and or easily spin something into another wave and link to it in the first wave to keep it on topic. He stressed Google Wave is in its early stages and in preview, but there’s definitely potential with it, so these are issues that could be addressed in the future.
“We’ve been looking for years for collaboration with the public in a meaningful way and this could be the tool,” he said.
Quigley is eager to keep pushing the envelope with Google Wave to see what it possible. He told me, for example, that he wants to try a participant’s suggestion to embed a Google Calendar with links to waves listed within it so users can follow that calendar with the wave schedule. He also hopes to try the map gadget the next time Austin gets hit with an ice storm. He said he would embed a map into a Google Wave and then people could report conditions at their house. Users could edit the map as weather conditions change.
Google Wave has the potential to become a virtual “town square,” where otherwise separate gadgets applied to content created by journalists and enhanced by the wave’s users can be used to provide an accurate, detailed description of what’s happening locally.
Wave as a Newsroom Content Planning Tool
Chris Taylor, online editor at TBO.com, is also the online breaking news editor in charge of planning content for his converged newsroom (which includes the Tampa Tribune, WFLA-TV and TBO.com). Each night he emails a content budget to the deadline team, but he is now also using a daily wave that others in the newsroom can add to, edit, etc. Taylor said there are about 15 people on this wave and he has requested more invites from Google to get more people involved.
The daily wave accounts for all the content the newsroom knows is coming or is chasing down. There are about 40 stories in a wave and each story gets a paragraph and after each story is a blip. “Anything we can do in a newsroom of this size [to help] the content we produce to keep from falling through the cracks is a plus,” Taylor said.
When Taylor comes into work in the morning he can immediately get caught up on the status of all items in the newsroom budget by checking the wave. He said reviewing the wave at his desk takes one-tenth the time of having meetings.
“I think using it for this will get people comfortable with wave, which is my ultimate goal,” he said. “As we get more comfortable with it, we’ll be able to be where our audience is.”
Turning Blog Posts Into Public Waves
Andrew Nystrom, senior producer of social media and emerging platforms at the Los Angeles Times, collaborated with social media reporter Mark Milian on the blog post “How Google Wave Could Transform Journalism” that ran on the newspaper’s web site a couple of months ago.
Among some of the ideas listed in the post were: collaborative reporting, smarter story updates, live editing, discussing while reading, and a transparent writing process. Nystrom said in an email interview they’re looking at all the potential uses that Milian posited in the blog post. In a case of “eating his own dogfood,” so to speak, Milian even embedded the post as a wave and it has since received more than 350 blips.
“That experiment was definitely an eye-opener. My understanding of Wave has always been that it’s a valuable tool for small-team collaboration. So to see it succeed as a larger-scale crowdsourcing tool was unexpected to say the least,” Nystrom said by email. “People quickly swarmed the wave and provided a ton of really smart insights. Things we had never thought of.”
He added that they’ll definitely do more of this and that it’s just a matter of identifying which topics would benefit from collaboration.
“Ideally, every post would plug into wave because I love the inline commenting system. But I don’t want to flood the ocean,” according to Milian. “When we do another piece on Google Wave, or on something that begs for crowdsourcing, you will definitely see it in Wave.”
Reviews: Google, Google Maps, Google Wave, Twitter
Tags: Google Wave, journalism, List, Lists, mainstream media, media, News, trending, wave
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